Slashdot Mirror

← Back to Stories (view on slashdot.org)

Best Cell Phone Service for GPRS?

Posted by Cliff on from the finding-the-right-provider dept.

hojo asks: "I have a Palm Tungsten T and I'd like to start using it for (limited) wireless web browsing. It has Bluetooth support and will work with GPRS cell service. Alltel, my current cell provider, doesn't support GPRS so I want to switch to another plan. What cell phone service plans are there that you have used or know about that will work to allow me to use my Palm and preferably a Bluetooth phone for some on-the-road lookup? My only other issue is I'm trying to keep the cost less than $100/month."

1 of 53 comments (clear)

  1. Traffic by fm6 · · Score: 3, Interesting
    The whole point of GPRS is that you pay for the traffic you use (rather than connect time)...
    That's the theory. And it does appear that nobody's charging for GPRS connect time. (I'm not even sure it's possible.) But the big GSM/GPRS provider in my area (TMobile, California) seems to have had trouble selling GPRS on per-packet basis, and now offers a monthly rate with unlimited usage. I suspect people found the per-packet plan too expensive. Might be different in the U.S. than in countries where almost everybody uses GSM (such as Australia), and they can recover their capital costs from a larger consumer base.

    Here's a little background for people in GSM-only land. Outside the U.S. In the U.S., providers refused to standardize their technology, claiming that GSM wasted too much bandwidth. If I remember correctly, CDMA is the leading technology, with TDMA second, and various forms of GSM (not all of them compatibile with international GSM systems) a distant third.